Excerpts for El Mar De Los Trolls/the Sea of Trolls

El Mar de los Trolls / The Sea of Trolls

Planeta

Chapter One

The Shadow Across
The Water

"No ... no ..."

Jack sat up abruptly. The wind was howling
outside. The house held the deep chill that
seeped into it before dawn.

"No ... I won't do it ... it's evil ..."

Jack threw back the covers and stumbled to the
other end of the house. The Bard's bed was
shaking. He saw the old man thrust up his hand
as though warding something off. "Sir! Sir! Wake
up! Everything's all right." He caught the
Bard's hand.

"You won't bend me to your will! I defy you,
foul troll!"

Something - some terrible force - flung the
boy back. His head banged against the stone, and
his ears rang as though a blacksmith were
pounding on an anvil. He tasted blood.

"Oh, my stars, child! I didn't know it was you."

Jack tried to speak, choked on blood, and
coughed instead.

"You're alive, thank Freya! Stay here. I'll
build up the fire and make you a healing drink."

The ringing in Jack's ears died down, but he
felt violently sick to his stomach. He heard the
Bard move around, and presently, the hearth
burst into light. In a very short time he was
handed a cup of hot liquid. It hurt his mouth
and he recoiled.

"You bit through your lip, child. It isn't as
bad as it looks. The drink will make it better."

Jack managed to swallow, and the sickness went
away. He found himself trembling. Perhaps he'd
been trembling all along. He couldn't remember.
"Is that - is that how - you destroy your
enemies?" he stammered.

The Bard sat back. "One of the ways," he said.

"So that was ... magic."

"Some call it so," said the Bard.

"Will you teach me how to do it?"

"By Thor's bushy beard! I almost killed you, and
the first thing you want to know is how to do
it."

"W-Well, sir, I am your a-apprentice."

"And a right cheeky one too. Most boys would
have run home to their mothers after what you
just experienced. Still, curiosity is a great
thing. We two might just get along."

Jack felt a kind of warm sleepiness pass over
him. The pain was still there, but it seemed
unimportant. "What happened to you, sir?"

"That was a Nightmare, lad. Pray you never meet
one."

"You mean, a bad dream?"

"I mean a Nightmare. It's far worse."

Jack wanted to ask more, but he was too
comfortable. He yawned broadly, stretched out on
the floor, and fell asleep.

When he awoke, he was lying outside on a bed of
heather. He struggled to get up. "Rest a while,
lad," said the Bard. He was sitting on a stool
next to the door. His white beard and cloak
shone against the weathered house. "Ah,
sunlight," the old man said with a contented
sigh. "It heals the terrors of the night."

"The Nightmare?" Jack said. His mouth hurt, and
his speech was oddly slurred.

"Among other things," said the Bard. Jack felt
his lip and found, to his horror, that it was as
swollen as a mushroom after rain. "You wouldn't
make a bad-looking troll at the moment," the old
man remarked.

Jack remembered the words the Bard had cried out
in his sleep. "Have you truly seen one, sir?"

"Oh, yes. Dozens. Most are quite pleasant,
although they take getting used to. The ones you
have to watch out for are the half-trolls.
There's no describing how nasty they can be. Or
deceitful. They're shape-shifters, and when they
appear human, they're so beautiful that you
can't think of a single sensible thing around
them."

"Did one of them send the Nightmare?" said Jack.

"One of them rode it. Look, my boy, I was trying
to protect you from certain things until you
were older. But I may not have the time. Lately,
I've felt a darkness over the sea. She's
searching for me, you see. I can hide from her
in the daytime. At night my guard is down, and
she knows it."

"You could move in with the chief, sir. He could
protect you," said Jack. He was beginning to get
alarmed. This wasn't a saga or an amusing song.
This was real.

The old man shook his head. "Your chief is a
brave man, but he isn't up to handling trolls.
She is hunting for me, and if she has found out
where I am, her servants may already be on the
way. I've been careless. I should have
remembered that nowhere in the nine worlds is
safe for me as long as she is abroad. I may even
have to let her take me. Better that than let
her destroy your village."

"But can't you flee?"

"Jotuns follow a trail like a hound. Her
servants will come here first. If they don't
find me, they'll kill all of you."

"Jotuns?" Jack said faintly.

"It's what the trolls call themselves. They can
creep inside your mind and know what you're
thinking. They know when and where you're going
to strike before you do it. Only a very special
kind of warrior can overcome them."

"We have to do something." Jack knew his voice
sounded shrill, but he couldn't help it.

"We will," the Bard said firmly. "I'm on the
alert now. I won't let her catch me off guard
again. I should have been teaching you all these
weeks, but the peacefulness of this place lulled
me...."

The Bard fell silent, and Jack saw him looking
out to sea. He looked too, but he saw only
cloudless sky and gray-green waves bending
toward shore. If there was darkness out there,
he couldn't see it.

"You can go home for the next three days," said
the Bard. "I'll be walking in the forest. Oh,
and I wouldn't mention any of this to your
family." He reached for his black staff. "We
don't want to alarm them until it's necessary.
Jotuns can follow a trail of fear as easily as
foxes sniff out a henhouse."

"I spend half my time chasing those scurvy
boys," said Father, slurping a bowl of Mother's
rich cockle soup. Jack had provided the cockles
from sea cliffs near the Bard's house. "They
slide away like eels when there's real work to
be done."

Jack didn't think the farm was suffering. The
fences looked sturdy; the field was covered with
oats and barley. Mustard, lavender, and
coriander bloomed in the kitchen garden, and the
apple trees were covered with tiny green fruit.

It was so beautiful, it made his throat ache.
He'd never appreciated the little farm until
now. And he saw his father in a new light. He
realized that Giles Crookleg's complaints meant
no more than the muttering of crows in a tree.
It was a habit crows fell into when things
weren't going their way. Father, too, grumbled
by way of easing the disappointments in his
life. What mattered was how Father went on in
spite of his unhappiness, to create this
beautiful place. Jack saw how lovingly the house
was made, how carefully provisions were laid up
so that Mother, Lucy, and himself could survive.

It could all be swept away in an instant. No one
had any idea of the menace lurking over the sea.

"Jack's crying," said Lucy.

"I am not," Jack said indignantly. He turned his
head away to hide the tears that had wandered
down his cheek. He'd felt oddly shaken since the
Bard had thrown him down. He seemed to cry more
easily.

"Leave him alone, dearest," came Mother's soft
voice. "His mouth is very sore."

"The Bard thrashed him," said Father.

"It was an accident," Jack said.

"Oh, aye. You may tell us that, but I know a
thrashing when I see one."

Jack didn't say anything. If it pleased Father
to think he'd been punished, why spoil things?
And this, too, was new. Before, Jack would have
argued passionately. Now he saw the lines of
pain in his father's face, his hunched shoulders
and scarred hands. The boy had a glimmer of
another image, of his father as a child before
the accident.

Jack felt like crying again. These new feelings
were very odd and worrying.

"Washing cockles takes away the taste," said
Mother, but she finished the dregs herself and
gave Lucy an oatcake.

"Thrashing is good for boys," Giles Crookleg
said. "Why, I was smacked six ways to Sunday by
my father, and it made me the man I am today."

Then, because it was Sunday, Father told them a
story about the holy saints. Father couldn't
read, nor could anyone in the village except the
Bard. To Giles Crookleg, writing was a kind of
magic. When the Bard marked letters on a scrap
of parchment, Father always crossed himself to
avert a spell.

But he had memorized dozens of stories from the
monks of the Holy Isle. Tonight's tale was of
Saint Lawrence, martyred by pagans. "He was
roasted over a slow fire," said Father to Lucy's
horrified gasp. "They stuck garlic cloves
between his toes and basted him all over like a
chicken. When he was about to die and be taken
into Heaven, Saint Lawrence said, 'I think I'm
done. You may eat me when you will.' The pagans
were so impressed, they fell on their knees and
begged to become Christians."

Trolls eat people, thought Jack. They would come
over the sea and stick garlic cloves between
everyone's toes. He put his head down and
thought about green hills and puffy clouds
instead. He must not be afraid. Jotuns followed
fear like a trail.

Later Lucy wanted to hear her own story of how
she had lived in a palace.

"This will come to grief," said Mother. "She
can't tell the difference between fact and
fancy."

Father ignored her. Jack knew he looked forward
to the tales as much as Lucy did. The boy
understood - how had he changed so much in a
few weeks? - that these, too, were a comfort to
his father. Giles Crookleg might grumble like a
crow, but he lost himself like a bird in the
clouds of his own imaginings. He no longer had
to set foot on the earth or know that he was
doomed to creep upon it.

"Once upon a time," said Father, "the queen
dropped a honey cake on the ground."

"My other mother," prompted Lucy.

Mother sniffed. She had long since stopped
explaining that Lucy couldn't have two sets of
parents.

"It put down roots and grew," said Father.

"Until it was as tall as the oak by the
blacksmith's shed," Lucy said.

"Every branch was covered with honey cakes.
Invisible servants flew through the air to fetch
them."

"Invisible servants! I'd like that," said
Mother.

"You had a little dog with a green collar with
silver bells sewn on it. You could hear it
running through the house."

"Castle," Lucy corrected.

"Yes, of course. Castle. And it could talk. It
told you everything that went on in the kingdom,
but alas, it was very naughty. The dog ran away,
and the nurse ran after it."

"With me in her arms," said Lucy.

"Yes. She got lost in the woods. She sat down to
weep and tear her hair."

"She laid me under a rosebush first," said Lucy.

"A bear came out of the woods and gobbled her
up, but he didn't find you, dearest."

"And that was how I got lost," crowed Lucy, not
at all concerned about the fate of the nurse.

Jack fell asleep listening to the north wind
fussing with the thatch over his head.